Ted is always looking for ways to minimize his ecological footprint. Professionally, Ted is working to gain the skills necessary to turn his passion for sustainable development into action, as an entrepreneur or financing sustainable businesses.
Ted studied economics and international business at Saint Louis University’s campus in Madrid, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude and was honored as the Distinguished Student in International Business for his class. As the founder and president of the SLU Madrid Business Club, Ted focused the club’s activities on sustainability.
While working for commercial real estate multi-national Jones Lang LaSalle’s Madrid office, Ted strove to implement sustainable practices both within the firm and for its clients. He proposed and designed an Environmental Sustainability Action Plan for JLL Spain. Green Building and Environmentally Sustainable Development remain a passion for Ted: he believes that the intersection of sustainable infrastructure and sustainable attitude is where we’ll find a sustainable society.
Ted currently works for a private equity firm in Madrid, learning skills that he hopes to apply to finance Environmentally Sustainable Development in the United States and around the world.
Cherl Petso is the Associate Editor at Disaboom.com, an online magazine for people with disabilities. Her writing expertise includes articles about the environment and sustainable living, and vegan/vegetarian issues. A vegetarian for 16 years and a recent vegan, Cherl is passionate about animal rights and issues. She enjoys writing about simple ways to lessen the impact on the Earth.
Cherl recently moved to Denver, Colorado from Bellingham, Washington. She enjoys hiking and hanging out with her puppy.
Alexis Steinkamp grew up at Helderledge Farm, a perennial plant nursery in an apple orchard near Albany, New York. As a teenager, she hybridized daylilies, raised chickens, grew tomatoes, chopped wood, picked apples, baked pies and feared mosquitoes. She left the farm to attend Northwestern University and study art and design.
After graduating in 1991, she stayed in Chicago to work in theater, film and special event design. She didn’t make much money, but lived simply and saved for a rainy day or a place to live—whichever came first. As it turned out, the condo came first. Her friends were shocked that she, a starving artist, could afford a condo in the city. How did she do it? She should write a book about it! So, she did. She wrote a personal finance workbook to help young women budget, save and dream called Thrifty Girl KICKS YOUR FINANCIAL BUTT; Get a grip on your finances without dying of boredom. And, she developed a personal finance class that she teaches at Truman College in Chicago.
Today, Alexis still lives simply. She works part-time, writes and lives in a tiny condo with a beautiful view of the Chicago skyline. Visit her online at Thrifty Girl
Loretta White is a writer, educator and scholar who gained huge diversity of experience within varied industries; energy, government, high tech and more. The last fifteen years she brokered deals with the top multinational companies globally, her Rainmaker skills are unsurpassed and she remains an authority on BD, BI, sustainability and the Global Marketplace.
Frugality was the voice of her elders who endured wars, rationing and Depression, raised to respect, love and to co-exist with nature through sustainability, self reliance, need and RRR practices. Loretta’s juxtaposition of ideas, deep love for the planet and her Yankee sensibilities are the foundation of a lifestyle that is in partnership with nature. Loretta indulges her passions for renewable energy, organics and being green on her 17.5 acre farm in central Massachusetts.
Recently Ms. White has lead an Assoc. of Caregivers providing support to those caring for parents, disabled, and others.
Loretta is invested in the community of our species and our planet and her diverse background in technology and green living gives her a unique perspective on how to live with nature and with our own gifts of technology.
Ms. White’s work has been published by Corporations, magazines, readers digest and many others.
Lauren Mangion is a writer, engaged citizen, and an eco-coach from Calgary, Canada. Lauren’s personal life and work are intimately intertwined, both being experiments in more sustainable, lower-footprint urban living.
Through Conscious Home, an eco-coaching service, Lauren educates and inspires her fellow Calgarians with tools and resources toward reducing the individual ecological footprint.
Boston born novelist, short-story writer and who has published thousands of technical papers now works in the horror-fiction world. Occasionally, his characters and stories transcend genres and travel from fantasy to realism.
White contributes to L. A, Weekly occasionally and other magazines and online forums, he also blogs regularly for several news and industry sites.
Current projects include; “Underwater City Salvage,” “Real Vampires”, “The Black Coach”, “The In-Between Time.” His novels are richly textured with excellent grasp on popular culture, and explores feelings of angst, deep-rooted in ancient themes.
A freelance writer specializing in environmental and health topics, Linda recently was part of a core team of writers who developed content for GreenYour, a website devoted to greener living.
She wrote an environmental column for five years for Good Housekeeping magazine called Green Watch. You can find her articles in Plenty Magazine’s online newsletter, Fit Pregnancy, Good Housekeeping, Arthritis Today, Profiles (Continental Airline’s in-flight magazine), and Microsoft’s Encarta.
She served on her town’s environmental commission for 15 years and remains an active volunteer. Her personal essay column for the local newspaper offers her take on the natural world and on environmental topics in her neck of the woods.
Dayanti Karunaratne is a freelance journalist based in Canada's capital city, Ottawa.
Since graduating from Carleton University's journalism program in 2006, Karunaratne has worked on the news desk at the Port Hope Evening Guide, the Ottawa Citizen, and the Molokai Times. Karunaratne's writing appears in the Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Magazine, the Globe and Mail, and other lifestyle publications.
Heather O'Neill is the founder of Eco to the People, a green living blog.
Before founding Eco to the People, Heather O’Neill wore so many hats in the field of journalism that even the Queen Mother would envy her collection. She has worked as the managing editor of a beauty trade magazine; as a copy editor for an online tech magazine; as the associate editor of a city magazine and as a newspaper reporter and columnist, and as the senior editor at the popular online newsletter ecofabulous.
Her work has appeared in many publications, including Parenting, Alternative Medicine, Natural Solutions, Marin Magazine, Greenwich Magazine and HOME.
Heather earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from California College of the Arts. She lives and works in San Francisco.
Television producer-turned-blogger-turned-ecogeek, Kirsten Dirksen is co-founder of faircompanies.com a news/blog/video site focused on environmental sustainability for people and the planet.
For the cause, she has transformed her life into an eco-experiment, documenting every endeavor. Before moving to Barcelona, Spain, Kirsten was a TV producer/shooter/editor for U.S. networks like MTV, Oxygen, Sundance Channel and Travel Channel.
It stands to reason that most of us would think we actually turn off our appliances, gadgets and electronics when we request that of them. However, this is often not the case.
Phantom loads, energy/power vampires, idle currents, or “wall warts” continue to draw electrical current even in “off” modes. Our cell phone chargers, televisions, computers and all their peripherals, even microwaves or coffee makers with digital clocks are sucking electricity even if they are not plugged in to the device to be charged, or we consider them to be off.
In some cases, the amount of energy drawn is not small. Some plasma screen televisions can draw as much power in a standby mode as they can when being actively used.
It Adds Up
It might not sound like a significant concern at first, but phantom loads can account for 10-20 percent of your annual home energy bill, which could be looked at as a month’s worth of wasted electricity.
Eliminate Wasted Energy
A handy little device to help test which appliances and electronics are the biggest concern is an inexpensive Kill-a-Watt which will monitor the energy drawn when not in use. From there, you can purchase power strips for your bigger electricity users, like home entertainment systems or computers and all their peripheral accompaniments. It is much easier to turn everything off with a power strip than to unplug everything individually.
For those concerned with completely shutting off electronics that take a long time to reset, like satellite boxes, a Smart Power Strip has multiple outlets that can accommodate masters and their peripherals, sensing when the master (eg. computer, television) has turned off, it then cuts off power to the speakers, monitors, DVD, etc. This also gives you the ability to decide which electronic to plug in to which outlet, leaving on stand-by the things you want to remain ready for action.
I actually tried this at the start I took a meter reading and at the end of the moth another and compared the two. Just by turning off the surge protectors on the television, media and computer items, we saved $35.00 that month. In subsequent months the load varied between $25.00 to $45.00 depending on how many days went between the times we actually put the strip back on.
It messed with the cable box a bit and we learned pretty fast to turn it back on a few minutes before we wanted to watch something.
It was quite a surprise.
Karen
May 4, 2009 9am EDT
Where can I find a Smart Power Strip? Sounds like just what I need
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Great article!
I actually tried this at the start I took a meter reading and at the end of the moth another and compared the two. Just by turning off the surge protectors on the television, media and computer items, we saved $35.00 that month. In subsequent months the load varied between $25.00 to $45.00 depending on how many days went between the times we actually put the strip back on.
It messed with the cable box a bit and we learned pretty fast to turn it back on a few minutes before we wanted to watch something.
It was quite a surprise.
Where can I find a Smart Power Strip? Sounds like just what I need